“thanK you aIMee” – The Tortured Poets Department
“thanK you aIMee,” the 24th song from The Tortured Poets Department, is about Taylor Swift calling out a bully named “Aimee,” who fans believe to be Kim Kardashian. The first clue that “thanK you aIMee” is about Kardashian is the capitalized letters in the song’s title, which spell out “KIM.” Read on for other that support why “thanK you aIMee” is about Kardashian.
When I picture my hometown
There’s a bronze spray-tanned statue of you
And a plaque underneath it
That threatens to push me down the stairs, at our school
- Kardashian is known for her bronze-colored spray tan and even released a line of body makeup under her former brand KKW Beauty.
But I can’t forget the way you made me heal
And it wasn’t a fair fight, or a clean kill
Each time that Aimee stomped across my grave
And then she wrote headlines
In the local paper, laughing at each baby step I’d take
- Both Swift and Kardashian made headlines in the summer of 2016 when Swift claimed that she didn’t know ahead of time about Kardashian’s husband at the time Kanye West’s song “Famous,” in which West rapped that “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex.” “She totally knew that that was coming out,” Kardashian told GQ at the time. “She wanted to all of a sudden act like she didn’t. I swear, my husband gets so much s—t for things [when] he really was doing proper protocol and even called to get it approved.”
- Swift, for her part, called Kardashian’s account of what went down “incorrect” and claimed that she and West “only spoke once on the phone.” Kardashian then released the footage of Swift and West’s phone call on Snapchat, in which Swift appeared to approve of the lyric.
- After the Snapchat video, Swift released a statement in which she confirmed that she heard part of “Famous” and explained that she had a bigger issue with another lyric in which West rapped “I made that bitch famous,” referring to Swift. “Of course I wanted to like the song. I wanted to believe Kanye when he told me that I would love the song. I wanted us to have a friendly relationship. He promised to play the song for me, but he never did,” Swift wrote. “While I wanted to be supportive of Kanye on the phone call, you cannot ‘approve’ a song you haven’t heard. Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination.”
And maybe you’ve reframed it
And in your mind, you never beat my spirit black and blue
I don’t think you’ve changed much
And so I changed your name, and any real defining clues
And one day, your kid comes home singin’
A song that only us two is gonna know is about you
- Swift seemed to confirm that “Aimee” was a pseudonym for someone else with the lyric “so I changed your name, and any real defining clues.” In this lyric, she also referenced a 2023 TikTok video in which Kim and her daughter North West danced to Swift’s song, “Shake It Off,” from 1989.
